President’s Message

The University community is profoundly energized as we begin the two-year countdown to the end of The Second Century Campaign, which runs through December 2015. Recent and generous gifts have raised our campaign total to a historic level.

Recent initiatives receiving support include the Moody Coliseum project, a new cyber security institute, a new campus center at SMU-in-Taos and a new legal center, all reported in this issue of Campaign Update. They demonstrate the campaign’s continuing impact on SMU and the breadth of University areas benefiting from the campaign’s success.

As we move ahead, we remain focused on achieving the campaign’s core goals: increasing the number of student scholarships, endowed faculty positions and new and enhanced facilities.

Reflecting the hiring of SMU’s first faculty in 1914, 2014 has been designated the centennial Year of the Faculty. The commemoration is a way to showcase the many achievements of our professors and the impact that campaign giving is having on their teaching and research. It also highlights our focus on increasing the total number of endowed faculty positions to 110. As part of the commemoration, special Year of the Faculty events and initiatives will take place throughout the year.

Other events celebrating key achievements also will be on the calendar in 2014. The dedication of the new Residential Commons Complex this spring and the subsequent launch of our new campus-wide Residential Commons initiative in August will mark the implementation of a new SMU living-and-learning model.

The dedication of a new Mustang Band Hall and the groundbreaking for the new Dr. Bob Smith Health Center, both slated for 2014, also represent major strides forward in ensuring that SMU has the critical facilities necessary to support student achievement well into the future.

I hope everyone who cares about the University’s future will take the opportunity to join in the celebrations of these remarkable accomplishments.

Thank you for your vision, commitment and support, which continue to transform the SMU of today and shape the SMU of tomorrow.